464 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 



pressing the hope that powerful and cultivated, but unbelieving minds, 

 may be influenced to see the harmony of all truth, whether histori- 

 cal, moral or physical, and to remember that man is, after all his ac- 

 quirements in knowledge, a being, so darkly wise and rudely great, that 

 he is constantly in danger of deviating into error, especially on subjects 

 that have a moral, as well as a physical bearing. While, therefore, 

 in geology, as well as in other sciences, we fully approve, and hum- 

 bly follow the course of rigid induction — (the only safe and truly phi- 

 losophical process of investigation, and basis of physical truth,) we 

 hold it to be entirely proper in a scientific view, to avail ourselves of 

 every apposite historical fact, from whatever credible source it may 

 be derived. Indeed, no geologist hesitates to cite history, travels, 

 personal narrative, and even poetry and tradition, in confirmation or 

 illustration of earthquakes, floods, or volcanic eruptions ; of the ri- 

 sing or sinking of islands ; of alluvial increase or destruction ; of rup- 

 tures of the barriers of lakes, irruptions of the sea — or whatever other 

 fact may be the subject of his investigation. Why then should the 

 scripture history form the only exception among historical author- 

 ities ! 



Having made these suggestions to those geologists who are not 

 believers in divine revelation, w^e will now add a few remarks to be- 

 lievers who are not geologists. 



The subject before us is not one which can be advantageously dis- 

 cussed with the people at large. A wide range of facts, and an exten- 

 sive course of induction, are necessary to the satisfactory exhibition 

 of geological truths, and especially to establish their connexion and 

 harmony with the Mosaic history. It is a subject exclusively for the 

 learned, or at least for the studious and the reflecting ; but it can no 

 longer be neglected with safety, by those whose province it is to il- 

 lustrate and defend the sacred writings. The crude, vague, unskilful, 

 and unlearned manner, in which it has been too often treated, when 

 treated at all, by those who are, to a great extent, ignorant of the 

 structure of the globe, or who have never studied it with any efficient 

 attention, can communicate only pain to those friends of the bible, 

 who are perfectly satisfied, after full examination, that the relation of 

 geology to sacred history, is now as little understood by many theo- 

 logians, and biblical critics, as astronomy was in the time of Galileo. 



There is but one remedy ; theologians must study geology, or if 

 they will not, or from peculiar circumstances, cannot do it, they must 

 be satisfied to receive its demonstrated truths from those who have 



